


Favors

by darlingargents



Category: A Simple Favor (2018)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dubious Consent, F/F, Gaslighting, Infidelity, Manipulation, Mild Sexual Content, Misses Clause Challenge, Murder, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-21 19:58:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17049617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darlingargents/pseuds/darlingargents
Summary: Five favors Stephanie did for Emily. One favor Emily did back.





	Favors

**Author's Note:**

  * For [warriorpoet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/warriorpoet/gifts).



> More minor warnings in endnotes.

At first, Emily thought Stephanie was kind of pathetic.

She looked like someone who’d popped out of Pinterest, with her cartoon socks and mommy vlog. Maybe she was clever and generous, maybe her recipes were to die for (if her vlog sycophants were to be believed), but she was no one interesting. No one special.

A bit of a prude, too. But Emily had seen prudes who were at least interesting. Stephanie wasn’t.

She wasn’t, except she’d fucked her brother the first time they’d met.

Emily hadn’t seen that coming. And she was good at reading people; the fact that her initial impression of Stephanie had been so badly off the mark was more intriguing than anything else. Emily didn’t like being wrong, but she did like being surprised.

That was Stephanie’s first favor: she had hidden depths that Emily never would’ve predicted. She was a bad liar and a brotherfucker and a better mom than Emily. (Emily could admit that. She only lied about her past.) She was something interesting, in Emily’s life full of commutes and soulless office work and missing her son.

She was disarming. Emily didn’t have friends, but somehow, Stephanie was getting close anyway.

-

The second favor was a couple weeks into their… friendship. Stephanie brought Miles over and the boys had had a playdate, and Stephanie had cooked dinner for the four of them. Sean was at a work thing for the evening, so after, when the boys were watching a movie, it was just the two of them. And Stephanie was making drinks.

“You’re better at cooking than you are at martinis. Do you want a hand?” Emily said after Stephanie fucked up her third attempt, and Stephanie laughed, not as hurt as she probably had the right to be.

“No, it’s fine! I learn pretty quickly. I can post this on my vlog once I can do it right.” She pulled another pair of glasses out of the freezer and went through the whole process again. The twists she cut this time were a little small, but bigger than her last attempts, and Emily took the glass she offered.

It was nearly perfect. Stephanie wasn’t lying about being a fast learner.

“Passable.”

“Sure.” Stephanie took a sip, smiling and holding eye contact as she did. “Come on, admit I’m good at this.”

“You’re already better at everything else in the kitchen. Can’t let it go to your head.”

Stephanie put down the glass. “Okay, screw you,” she said, and then gasped, going pink. It was kind of adorable. “Oh, gosh, I’m sorry. It’s been a really long day—”

“Don’t say you’re sorry.”

“I’m — okay. I’m just… I think I’ve had a bit more of this than I should.” She picked up the glass and drained it.

“It’s fine,” Emily said, and found that she was smiling. “Come on, you’ve shown off your skills enough. Let me show you what  _ I’m _ good at.”

“This should be fun,” Stephanie said, deadpan, and Emily rolled her eyes, finished her own irritatingly perfect martini, and went upstairs. Stephanie followed.

It took some doing to convince Stephanie to try on Emily’s clothes. But she was just tipsy enough from drinking some of her failed martinis to let Emily dress her up in lingerie and a cute black dress. She looked  _ good _ , and Emily told her so.

“You think?” She spun in front of the mirror, runs her hands down the front of the dress. “It’s not really me, is it? It’s a bit… sexy.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“No! I mean, no, it’s just… been a while.” Emily couldn’t read her face as she looked herself in the mirror, spun around again. A little wistful, maybe.

Emily didn’t need wistful from her. She sat Stephanie down, did her makeup, and once she’d show Stephanie how fucking hot she looked, she kissed her.

That was the second favor. Their second kiss, and, apparently, the first time Stephanie had fucked a woman, going by what she said after, getting frantically dressed and trying to get Miles home for his bedtime.

It wasn’t even close to Emily’s first. But it had been a long time, and that night, the memory played over and over in her head as she fell asleep.

For a first-timer, Stephanie was excellent at giving as good as she got.

-

The third favor was simple. Pick up Nicky from school. Put Emily’s mind at ease as she stepped out of the office for the long drive to Michigan, to find her sister.

Stephanie was the most reliable person Emily had ever met. If she could trust anyone to look after Nicky, it was her.

She’d be back soon, anyway. Four million dollars richer and ready for a new life somewhere else.

-

The fourth favor was Nicky, again.

Emily didn’t know what, exactly, she expected after everyone thought she was dead. She thought Sean would be sad, and a little relieved, because he was nothing if not as trapped as she was in this house and this marriage and this life; he’d be a bit relieved, and feel guilty about it, and wonder what was wrong with him.

Emily didn’t really care if the guilt ate him alive. What she was worried about was Nicky.

She hadn’t meant to go back and see him. It was risky. Too risky. She hadn’t gotten this far by taking risks with no real gain. But she couldn’t stop imagining him, afraid and alone, missing his mom. So she went.

It was good to see him. And she got more than she bargained for.

Instead of running in the time of grief, Stephanie was there. She was serving desserts at the memorial and cooking dinner every night. She’d made Nicky feel better before he’d found out his mother wasn’t dead. And Nicky wouldn’t understand exactly what it meant, but she hadn’t stayed the night, hadn’t spent much time with Sean alone.

All that she was doing, and she wasn’t even fucking Sean. He was getting more than he deserved for nothing. Emily thought he better be damn grateful.

-

The fifth favor was getting up on the stand and testifying that Sean had been an abuser.

It took a while to get there. Stephanie had found out who Emily really was. She’d kept digging when she should’ve let Emily stay buried. So Emily had offered her a deal, and she’d done a favor.

It had taken convincing. And not just convincing; convincing, and lies, and more lies, and stories that sometimes had a kernel of truth to them. To make at least part of her believe that Sean really was a cheating asshole who sometimes let his fists do the talking instead of his words. Who had a massive hand in her plan to fake her death. Who would hurt others when given the chance.

Stephanie hadn’t wanted to listen, and it had taken a lot to make her. She’d been angry, and disbelieving, and Emily had kissed her, plied her with martinis. She’d gotten tipsy, and Emily had kissed her more, told her stories of Sean’s violent temper, his affairs, the possibility he might go completely off the rails someday.

Stephanie had said she would do it. Emily had kissed her again, brought her to bed, fucked her until she cried. She’d stayed the night.

The next morning, Sean had been released on bail, and Emily had shot him three times in the chest. Emily had bruised and bloodied her own face with a hammer, which Stephanie cleaned with half a dozen bleach washes and disposed of in a Starbucks bathroom the next day, and they’d dotted some of her blood against Sean’s curled fists, slamming them into the floor while the corpse was still warm to bruise them up as well.

The story that they told in court was simpler and more tragic and made them as innocent as could be. Stephanie had cried on the stand while telling it. The story went like this: Sean had gotten out of prison, and he’d been furious at his plan being foiled. He’d taken it out on his frightened, victimized wife, still recovering from her own trauma. Stephanie had shown up just in time to cause a distraction, allowing Emily to get the gun she’d hidden.

An easy narrative. It’s always the husband who did it, and it’s never the ones you expect. Sometimes, both of those things can be true.

The jury loved it. Their lawyer had selected as many wives and mothers as possible, and the hints that Emily dropped about her fear for her son cinched it. They were both cleared and Sean was posthumously charged with spousal abuse, assault, and fraud.

And the life insurance money had come through. Four million dollars, and a new life to start.

-

And then Emily had done her favor for Stephanie. Two million in cash. To pay off a house, to save for Miles’ college, to do whatever responsible mothers do with money they earned through murder and lying on the stand.

“Are you just going to vanish now?” Stephanie asked. They were at her house, and she’d made her now-perfect martinis. It was the first time Emily had been there. Her house was still a crime scene, so they’d had to improvise.

Stephanie’s house was cute, in its own way. Not Emily’s style. But very much Stephanie’s.

Looking at it, and looking at Stephanie’s sweater with cats on it, her fingers practically itched for another makeover. But no. Not the time.

“No,” Emily said. “Sell that fucking house, if anyone wants it after someone’s been murdered in the kitchen. Quit that soul-sucking job. Spend more time with Nicky.” And maybe someday they’ll vanish again together.

“Are you going to kill me for the money?” Stephanie asked, casually, and Emily blinked, caught off guard for the first time in a while. (Funny how it was always Stephanie doing that.) She  _ had _ thought about it, sure, but — Stephanie wasn’t a loose end that needed to be trimmed. She was as implicated as Emily. There was no story she could tell that didn’t take her down too.

“No. You’re fun to have around, brotherfucker.” Stephanie quirked a brow at that.

“And you, husband killer.”

“I’ll drink to that.” Emily drained her martini glass and set it down, getting to her feet and grabbing her jacket. “Thanks for the martini. Gotta go.”

Stephanie grabbed her wrist as she started to move out of the kitchen, her fingers circling the flames of her tattoo. Emily looked down, amused, and Stephanie didn’t let go. She pulled Emily closer, and Emily went.

The kiss wasn’t a total surprise. The roughness of it was. The way Stephanie pushed her against a wall, holding down her wrists until they started to lose feeling, also was.

Emily was a little surprised that she liked it. She had never been interested in anyone else pulling the strings or having control, but as Stephanie dug her teeth into Emily’s neck, she found that in this case — she really, really was.

No, she hadn’t planned on immediately vanishing. But if she ever needed a reason to stay — well. She thought maybe she had one, now.

**Author's Note:**

> More minor warnings:
> 
> \- Slight implications of theoretical child abuse. (Doesn't actually happen and isn't implied to have happened; it's a lie in-universe.)  
> \- Descriptions of fictional domestic abuse. (Same as the above.)  
> \- Sex while intoxicated. (Probably falls under dubcon, but warning just to be safe.)  
> \- Slight D/s, unnegotiated. (Very brief and non-explicit.)


End file.
